Solar Energy | Liberty County Solar Energy Project

An agreement has been entered into by National Solar Power and Liberty County, Florida to construct a 100MW solar power plant. The facility will consist of up to five 200-acre plots with each capable of producing up to 20MW of solar power. The expectation is that each plot will cost US$70 million to develop resulting in a total cost for the entire facility of US$350 million.

The appropriate local and state permitting processes still have to be taken care of but when they have been completed it can be expected that the first phase of the project can be running within seven months of breaking ground. The project is the Melbourne-based company’s third in Florida. The other two are in Gadsen and Hardee counties.

The company that will design, build and operate the solar farm for National Solar Power is Hensel Phelps Construction Co. It is expected that the full construction process will cover five years and during that time the project will create up to 100 jobs with up to 25 permanent jobs created when construction is complete.

“Florida is ripe with opportunities to establish successful solar-energy projects,” said National Solar Power CEO James Scrivener. “We are grateful to the Liberty County community for the warm welcome it has extended to us and stand ready to work with our new partners to build our new network of farms and begin harvesting the power of the sun.”

National Solar Power is negotiating with multiple large financial institutions and private equity investors to provide project financing. The company has entered into an agreement with Progress Energy Florida and is having discussions with other potential customers to purchase power generated by its Florida solar farm projects.

Along with the agreement with Progress Energy Florida, National Solar Power has executed power supply agreements for more than 3,000MW of solar farms in the south east of the US.